Make The Best Of It
by Sviira
Summary: As the clans are warring, one family must survive as an untrustworthy neutral force in the ninja world. How can the Uchiha and Senju clans be changed by a headstrong girl and her brother? How can the Naruto cannon survive the force of an otaku who was reincarnated into this work of fiction? Well, when life gives you lemons you make lemonade.
1. That shouldn't be Green

Sirens.

I have always hated the sound of sirens. Nothing is more obnoxious than the _**Weeeooooooo Weeeooooo Weeeeeooooooo**_ that flies right by you on an otherwise nice day. That, and the fact that every time I have heard one up close it has been followed by some kind of tragedy.

It seemed kinda annoyingly poetic that the last thing I heard in my last life was a siren.

Yep, you heard me right. I died, but I came back… sorta. I would chalk it up to reincarnation, but I'm both stubborn and religious, so I'll get back to you when I have an answer that works with one or both of my things. I also didn't come back in the same place. Or time. Yay.

But seriously, one minute I was there minding my own business, passing out from blood loss or head trauma or something (it's a bit fuzzy), the next I was being shoved out of some stranger's womb. Let's just say that I now have a very personal understanding of why babies cry when they are born.

Birth is fucking _terrifying_ when you are the one popping out.

But anyways, I was "reborn" (or just hallucinating really bad. And continuously. For a few decades now- ok whatever! For our purposes: yes, I was reborn after dying. Less confusing this way.) and it was one of the most frustrating things I had ever experienced in both of my lives.

Babies don't really do much besides sit there and try to see what those blurs in front of them are, so as a new baby I was expected to act accordingly. So, naturally I decided to throw all laws about child development out the window and I privately began relearning how to walk and talk as soon as possible. THankfully, I was a linguist in my old life, so I already knew a fair amount of Japanese and didn't need to start from square one like actual babies in the language department. My rapid progress in my infancy thrilled my "parents", who thought that I was some sort of genius (and I guess by baby standards I was).

"Mom" had some interesting characteristics that should have given away the fact that where I had been "reborn" was not my own world. Her eyes had a weird sparkle in them that is hard to put into words, her body was as close to perfect as possible, oh- and her hair was green.

Not in the "mom is going through a phase and/or found the hair dye" green, like, she was an actual green-ette. How the heck that is even a thing I will never know. The day someone can explain to me the evolutionary benefits of having green hair will be the day that I will willingly drop whatever the heck I am doing and invent a nobel prize or something for this world. Seriously, this question has haunted me for years, and I am no closer to figuring it out now than I was when I started.

"Dad" on the other hand was very...plain? It sounds mean when I say it like that, but he really was. Brown hair, brown eyes, normal body shape, favorite color is blue, but slightly taller than the other men who I saw him with, so at least he had that. "Mom" and "Dad" (or Okaa-san and Otou-san, as they liked to be called) celebrated my birth as any normal family would. Hardcore partying for six hours solid. With booze. Lots. Of. Booze. Because why not? You're only breastfeeding a child, what's the worst that could happen if you get a ton of _sake_ in you and subsequently put it in your child? Okaa-san's guide to A+ parenting right here folks.

Baby-me was not a happy camper that night, let me tell you that. Unfortunately, all of the adults were too drunk to notice the baby crying in the corner of the room (who they were there to celebrate), which meant that my oldest brother had to take care of me while the grownups were "adulting".

Haruto, the oldest, was four or so when I was born. He had Okaa-san's bright blue eyes but Otou-san's hair, not to mention the obvious trouble-making smirk that he kept on his face all the time. I'm like 99% sure that he sleeps like that, too. It's creepy to think about that, so I really try not to. His laugh was always contagious though, so he was given my seal of approval almost the moment I met him.

Another complaint I have: I didn't get a name until I was like three or something. The time that we lived in was not the friendliest in terms of infant mortality, so most parents held off on getting super attached to their kids until they could ensure that they would probably survive for a decade or more. Or at least that's what I assumed. Most people don't sit down and talk to a toddler about why she was without identity for the first years of her life.

By the time that I was named, I could already converse with adults and do basic physical exercises that other children wouldn't have the coordination for. It was Haruto who came up with the genius idea of naming me Hiroko ("prosperous child" for you anglophones), and the name stuck.

It was under the new name Hiroko that I learned how to mold chakra for the first time. I had always been somewhat aware of it inside of me, but I wasn't well versed in yoga in my previous life, so I really had no idea how to work with specific parts of my body and single out what makes what work. Honestly it was a miracle that I was able to function at any type of gym at all back then. I knew that pushing out your arms made the machine thingys there move, which made you feel pain. There, the true extent of my physical expertise by the time I was three in my new body.

The molding chakra thing was cool though. I learned the basics at the same time as Haruto was practicing his jutsu, so I was able to make the connections between the basics and the complicated stuff that Otou-san and Haruto threw at each other daily.

It was explained to me by Okaa-san that chakra was the lifeforce of the world. Everything has some of it, and many creatures have figured out how to manipulate it to do everything from making a leaf stick to your hand to leveling mountains. She taught me to feel the chakra network inside of me, how to mold it and sense it. I was able to feel people's chakra around me, enough so that it made it nearly impossible for Haruto to sneak up on me.

"Okaa-san," I asked while eyeing the way that my brother and Otou-san sparred with each other one day.

She looked over at me from the table where she was doing some calligraphy work, "Yes Hiroko-chan?"

"Why are we learning how to fight with chakra?" My eyes never left the training field, but I felt Okaa-san shift uncomfortably. I had attempted to keep up with the whole 'don't mind me, I'm just a normal toddler' thing, but I soon found out that that was a tiring game that I really had no way of keeping up with. So by the age of four, I was already gaining a reputation for being a genius in mind and taijutsu. That definitely came back to bite me in the butt later, but for now it was more convenient.

Okaa-san sighed and set her brush down on the table. I climbed onto her lap and allowed her to run her hands through my hair. "Hiroko… There are a lot of bad people in this world. Many of them like to kill each other so that they are the most powerful ones. Almost all ninja children at your age are learning how to protect yourselves, but it is especially important for you and your brother to learn."

I tilted my head in confusion at that. "Me and onii-chan? Why?"

"Your father and I are members of a group of ninja who don't pick sides in everyone else's fights. That makes us targets from all sides, which means that we need to be more powerful than they are to stay safe."

"Who are 'they'?"

"'They' refers to any other ninja really," she tapped her finger on her chin as she thought about who to list. "The main clans that pose a danger to us and are in this immediate area are the Senju, Uchiha, Hyuga, and Akimichi clans, but I have seen a few Sarutobi's in the area on jobs. Make sure that if you ever find anyone from those clans that you don't pick a fight until you know that you can win." Okaa-san scowled slightly as she directed her eyes towards where Haruto and Otou-san were still sparring, having apparently decided to include kunai and shuriken into the mix.

"There are also people who are after our family's kekkei genkai, which also makes you and your brother a target."

That was news to me. I had never had any suspicion that I had some kind of special ninjutsu in my heritage. Heck, I hadn't ever seen any of my relatives use it when I watched them train my brother, nor did my family have a super memorable last name for the Naruto universe, so I really had no idea that this was even an option for me. It's Abe by the way. My last name- or clan name- that is.

Abe Hiroko da~!

I would mispronounce it to piss everyone off, so I would say "Abe" like the English pronunciation instead of the Japanese "ah-beh". Oooh boy did I get some mileage out of that one. But I digress. Seamless transition powers: activate!

"K-kekkei genkai?" I sputtered out, trying not to let the surprise be too evident. Okaa-san laughed at my feeble attempt at controlling my emotions and resumed playing with my hair.

"Yes. It is a very big secret for us. Due to our neutrality, our clan can only practice in special places. We have a grotto in the nearby forest where it is safe, but that is why you haven't seen anyone use it."

I turned to look at her fully, anticipation evident in my small frame. "And… What _is_ our family's kekkei genkai?"

Okaa-san smirked mischievously at me, proving that my brother was truly her son. "How about I show you in two days, when your brother has his training for our kekkei genkai?"

I couldn't help my eyes widening in excitement, or the huge grin that broke out on my face. Okaa-san smiled back at me and hugged my tiny body to her in pride, her green hair mixing into my light brown. My mind raced as I tried to think of what it could be. Was it something cool? Something to get me notability and importance to the naruto plot?

Okaa-san put me back on the ground and went back to her calligraphy work, every now and then gently pulling on the sleeves of her Kimono to allow air to cool off her arms in the hot afternoon.

That was one thing that had confused me a bit. We lived in the land of fire, notorious for its hotass summers and shortass winters, yet my entire family had a thing for always being covered. It was probably just a modesty thing or like what the Amish do (put as many layers on a person as possible before they pass out from heat exhaustion) to not break tradition.

… Or something like that…

It was annoying though. Year-round we would be in layers, admittedly not nearly as much in the summer, but still. I was never a fan of long sleeves and tight leggings when I was growing up the first time, so to not only be forced to wear those but have to deal with the fact that it was the only option for me was a bit of an adjustment.

The gloves sucked too. I felt like I was surrounded by germaphobes 24/7, but I knew that wasn't the case because I was encouraged to tackle my brother outside in the dirt to settle our arguments. Apparently that was healthy behavior for ninja children, who knew? Every time I asked about why I had to wear so many clothes I would get a chuckle and a "you'll learn soon enough, Hiroko-chan".

Fuck being a kid, I was ready to not be ignored anymore! The novelty of childhood wore off relatively quickly, so I spent a very long time getting really frustrated at how little others thought of me due to my age or gender or some combination of the two. Pft, whatever. That just means that I can blindside everyone whenever I want to!


	2. Reflections

I remember the first time I saw a reflection of myself. We had a mirror hanging in the hall that faced the entrance to our house (which I didn't find out until later was there because ninjas are paranoid as _heck_ , and it allowed the adults to see behind them as they came in), and after I had "learned" to walk I had found it while I had given Haruto the slip one afternoon. To say that it was a surreal experience was an understatement. It was the first time I knew what I looked like. By that point, I still wasn't named, and had nothing to really use as a baseline of establishing an identity for myself. But, there I was in all of my chubby, toothless, infant body.

As confounded as I was with Kaa-san's green hair, it only seemed fitting that the universe gave me the exact same color of lime-ass green sprouting from my little toddler head, as well as the same electric blue eyes that my brother and Kaa-san had. It was hard to determine any defining facial structures because, well, I was a baby. My defining characteristics were my chubbiness and the cute little dimples I got when I smiled because Haruto did something funny.

Haruto found me eventually, and laughed at how fascinated I seemed to be with my reflection. My eyes trailed over my tiny body, noting the muted brown shirt that covered my arms and most of my small frame, with green socks completing the ensemble and covering up almost everything that the shirt- more of a smock really- didn't. I hadn't worn gloves yet by that point because I was growing too fast for something so fitted, but I did have a pair of mittens that were shoved onto my hands whenever we went out, partially due to the cold, mostly because of the weird thing my clan had about clothes.

It didn't bother me a whole lot, because it was getting close to the "shortass winter" part of the year, and the temperatures were starting to drop, so the layers were appreciated more so than in the summer months.

Haruto was similarly dressed to me: oversized shirt, long socks, but with the addition of actual gloves and actual pants. His short brown hair was haphazardly sticking out in all directions, giving him a rather cute "I'm a kid and don't have to conform to beauty standards yet" look. His grin was blinding as he made eye contact with me, obediently picking me up as I tugged on his clothes. He laughed and spun me around, causing a peal of laughter to escape my smiling face.

"Imouto, you shouldn't wander off like that," he said as he brought me back to the kitchen. "I think that you need to learn to stay where I can see you, yeah?"

I raised a little eyebrow at him, showing how unimpressed I was with his talking at me. I didn't quite have the brain-to-mouth coordination to respond to much beyond something that could be passed off with a one syllable answer, but Haruto was acutely aware that I could understand him almost perfectly well, and knew that my inability to communicate properly was frustrating for me.

He plopped me down on the floor and sat in front of me. "Do you know how I'm gonna make you remember to stay where we can see you?" His voice was teasing, but I had absolutely no idea where this was going. I had wandered off before, and I personally didn't think it mattered as long as I stayed in the house, so I didn't really see a problem. Hesitantly, I shook my head 'no' at him.

His grin turned mischievous as he bent over slightly, his eyes suddenly parallel to my own. "Get ready to be TICKLED!"

He suddenly launched at my tiny body and relentlessly tickled me until I was laughing uncontrollably on the ground. He soon joined in the laughter and we were both just laying in the middle of the kitchen laughing at each other for an unknown amount of time.

That was how Tou-san found us. He looked confused for a moment as he walked into the kitchen, but soon smiled as he set down his backpack and pulled us both into a quick embrace. I was able to smell sweat and something vaguely metallic on his clothes, but was pulled away from his arms by my Kaa-san, who propped me on her hip as she placed a kiss on Tou-san's cheek. Haruto was being held under Tou-san's arm and was half heartedly trying to escape from his grip, which Tou-san ignored.

"Welcome home, dear!" Kaa-san's voice said happily as she smiled, trying distract from the concerned eyes that swept over his form. I think that she had smelled the metallic scent on him, too.

Tou-san sighed and lightly smacked Haruto on the head to get him to stop squirming. "It's good to be back. The job thankfully went rather smoothly considering the rising tensions between the neighboring clans."

He set Haruto down, who immediately left the room to go lord knows what. The bastard was probably putting bugs in my bed or something… It seemed to be an unspoken rule in the house that once the adults began talking about work, children needed to make themselves scarce. I couldn't presently because Kaa-san was still holding me, but I wasn't complaining.

I had gathered that we were a ninja family, but I really had no ideas what that actually meant, so this was a rare opportunity to learn about it.

Tou-san ran a hand over his face and tiredly sat in a nearby chair. Kaa-san pulled up another chair and moved me to her lap from her hip as she looked at him expectantly. I, meanwhile, was really playing up the baby behavior so I wouldn't be kicked out of the room to be with Haruto.

"Dear, please. What happened?" Kaa-san was suddenly serious, no longer needing to play at being relaxed. Her hands tightened minutely around me as I pretended to take an interest in her yukata sleeve, stuffing it into my mouth.

"The Senju are becoming bolder in their advances against the Uchiha, and I was pressured to convince our council to pick a side in the war. It is difficult to do a job with Butsuma when he has his men watching me every second or is asking me about Taijima and his people. I honestly think I prefer the Uchiha to the Senju in that sense. They still watch me but they know that I can't break my vow of neutrality, so they don't pester us about it nearly as much."

He huffed in frustration, his brown eyes going dark for a moment before returning to the normal, cheery eyes that I was familiar with as he gently pulled Kaa-san's sleeve out of my mouth. "Some Senju brat was on my mission this time- I swear they keep getting younger and younger- and the kid was completely unprofessional about the whole thing. He had mood swings like you wouldn't believe, and I ended up taking a kunai for him before he finally got it through his skull that this life isn't a game."

"What?! You got hit? Where did-"

"Never fear, my love. You know that the Senju are the best healers. Didn't even leave a scar on me after they were done!" He smiled pacifyingly at her, gently taking me from Kaa-san so that I could sit in his lap as she began to fret about his physical condition.

"Anyways, turns out the kid is the heir to the Senju, so now they're probably gonna be more trusting of us in the future due to the debt that they feel they owe to me."

That got my attention. So, Hashirama was on the battlefield already? That didn't quite help me in knowing exactly _when_ in the Narutoverse I was, but it helped narrow some stuff down. So the Konoha founders were only a little older than Haruto, and Tou-san had had dealings with both the Uchiha and Senju on his missions. Interesting…

Nothing much of consequence was said after that, so I'll spare you the details about the growing harem of our Daimyo or the developments that someone made in exploding tags (they could now blow up three at once, wow!). Not long after that night, Kaa-san caught me trying to talk to myself in the mirror, which apparently meant that I was too old to be able to innocently listen in on my parent's jobs.

* * *

Kaa-san put something in front of me that I had never seen in this lifetime. It was a sleeveless shirt and shorts. I blinked at the clothes in her hands, before I hesitantly reached out to get a closer look at them.

It was actually a sleeveless shirt. My eyes were not playing tricks on me. "Kaa-san…?" I asked in confusion and a hint of wonder.

"Put them on Hiroko, but put your coat over them. You don't need your socks, just your sandals." With that she left me alone in my room to change, but not before looking back at me with some kind of… sadness? Regret? Frustration? It was hard to tell, but whatever it was wasn't a positive emotion, of that I was certain.

Today was the day that Kaa-san had said that I could learn about the clan's Kekkei Genkai, which was really exciting, but I was suddenly feeling rather nervous. All morning Haruto had kept sending me concerned looks, and Tou-san gave me a hug before leaving for his patrol shift which really freaked me out. We weren't the most touchy-feely family, so when someone gave an unprompted hug out of the blue it was reason for concern.

I changed into the clothes, feeling almost naked without the layers covering my little four year old frame. My arms were bare- aaaaaaannd now I'm cold. What the fuck?! It's June! I quickly grabbed the coat that hung in my closet, but it didn't do much to cover my pale legs, which also felt unusually bare.

I edged out of my room, feeling uneasy at how new things were. My leg bumped into the wall, where I felt the actual wood holding up our house with my bare skin for the first time. My hands were shoved into my jacket pockets, not used to feeling air moving against my skin.

I put on my sandals, flinching slightly at the texture of them before walking out into the backyard of our house. Haruto and Kaa-san were standing just outside the door, obviously waiting for me. He moved to sweep me up into a hug, but stopped himself, looking at his also gloveless hands in frustration.

My eyebrows wrinkled in confusion, and I looked at Kaa-san. She noticed my gaze and smiled reassuringly and placed a bare hand on the top of my head. "I know that you have questions Hi-chan, but you need to be patient. All will be revealed in its time today."

… Well. _That's_ not unnecessarily cryptic…

I silently followed them both into the woods near our house, and looked around in wonder at the mighty trees that were so prevalent around Fire Country despite the fact that my heart was pounding in my chest to the beat of my rising anxiety. I was never allowed into the woods. Ever. Tou-san said that it was too dangerous to go in there alone, so naturally I had begged everyone I could to take me into the woods. None of my clansmen or immediate relatives had relented, meaning that the woods were a no-go until I "was older".

"Oh, wow!" I exclaimed, suddenly noticing that we had entered into a large clearing with plenty of random objects strewn about it that looked like they were used for some kind of training. At the center of the field was a clean patch of land roughly in the shape of a circle with no debris in it, and at the opposite end of the clearing was a small hut with a locked door facing us.

Haruto smiled weakly at my exclamation, and Kaa-san seemed to ignore me, simply continuing forward until all three of us reached the clear part in the middle. She directed me to the center, and turned to face me.

"Hi-chan, please remove your coat and your shoes and hand them to Haruto." She said in a commanding voice, suddenly changing from the gentle and sweet woman who cared for me into a no-nonsense leader before my eyes. Her blue irises were flat, guarding any emotion that I would have normally been able to read easily. Her regal posture made her loom above me as her long green hair blew gently in the wind.

"What's going on, Kaa-san? I don-"

"Please don't speak until we are finished, Hi-chan. Do as you are instructed."

I nodded and did as I was told. Following orders blindly was definitely a trait that I had picked up in this life. I was a very politically active student back in University, so I had learned to question everything. Here you just didn't do that, which was a lesson that took a long time for my "parents" to get me to understand.

Haruto quickly snatched my clothes from my hands and laid them outside of the clearing. I watched him put down my clothes, and turned around to find Kaa-san holding a large box in her hands. I vaguely noticed that the door to the shed was open, but I didn't have time to fully comprehend that before she spoke again.

"Hiroko, you are about to learn how our clan's Kekkei Genkai works and all of the responsibility that comes with that knowledge. Do you understand that this is a secret technique that you must never tell anyone about?"

I nodded, eyes flickering to the box in her hands before going back to her.

"Good," she seemed to get more tense as she said that though, so obviously something was wrong. "It is… difficult to explain the exact effects that our power has on the body, so it has been a tradition in our clan to have shinobi experience it first before having it explained."

She opened the box, and I heard something moving inside of it as she reached into it. I took a step back in fear as she pulled out a large, bright red- and very angry looking- viper. It looked like it would have bitten Kaa-san had she not been holding it firmly behind the head. It hissed in rage and twisted its body around to try to loosen her grip on it.

"Hiroko," she said sharply, pulling my attention back to her despite the viper literally trying to kill her. "I want you to put out your hand and let the viper bite you."

 **Author's Note: Hi! Thanks so much for taking the time to read** _ **Make the Best of it**_ **! Y'all seriously have no idea how happy it makes me to read the reviews that y'all leave and to see that people actually like my work. This is** **definitely** **a work that is heavily inspired by all of the famous SI/OC fanfictions for Naruto, such as DoS, Catch Your Breath, Iryo Nin Kasa, etc. Please leave your thoughts, because I'm really not kidding when I say it makes my day to see what y'all think- my roommates can attest to that. XD**


	3. Zodiacs

**AN: Hi guys! Sorry this took a while to post! I suppose that I could try to make an excuse about midterms and the like but they all sound kinda like bad excuses anyways, so I'm not going to bore anyone with the 'why' and instead just enjoy the chapter!**

 **Also, props to cwrywn for getting unnervingly close to correctly guessing the Abe clan's abilities. Seriously, I think my heart stopped for a second when I read your comment for the first time! XD**

 **Enjoy!**

My brother was significantly older than I was when I was born. I wasn't kidding when I said that the child mortality rate was insane here. Between the clans killing anything that moved every other week and the lack of medical advancements that my clan had made (as much of a powerhouse that Hashirama would become in healing, his clan was hoarding any information to do with healing like selfish pricks). I found out from an off-hand comment from Haruto that I had had other older siblings, which explained the seven year age gap between him and me.

Kaa-san and Tou-san never even mentioned that there were other children at any point between my brother and I, but there were definite signs when I paid enough attention to the older occupants of the house that great loss was felt regularly. Every winter Kaa-san would go out into the woods and spend a few days alone, while Tou-san watched us. Every time one of the clansmen came by with news from the latest battle and mentioned that the Hyuuga were on the move Tou-san would leave the room, his fists clenched tightly. Sometimes I saw Haruto just looking around my room like something was wrong with it. Like there was something missing. Kaa-san once said that the mirror that faces the door was only put in a year before I was born. Tou-san mentioned that our village had been raided before, but he never gave any specific dates or elaborated on it, his eyes betraying the pain that his body language refused to divulge.

It was always hard to really compete with the memories of an unknown amount of siblings who died in relatively unknown ways, so I tried to pay it as little mind as I could. It was hard to imagine children being killed in battle or in our house without my mind escaping down a thought train of pain and sorrow that I had strived very hard to get past in my previous life. Depression is a bitch, no matter what body you're in.

One thing that did continually pop up for seemingly no reason was the topic of zodiacs. I couldn't really remember zodiacs being a huge part of Naruto, so I was mildly frustrated to be blindsided with this seemingly unimportant detail about shinobi life that took on an almost cult-like following in my clan.

Before I even had a name, everyone called me 'little serpent'. Apparently I was born in the year of the snake. Cool, I guess…? I was a dragon in my first life, so I never really considered it an upgrade to be honest. I didn't put as much stock into the whole 'birth year determines your fate' bullshit anyways, unlike literally everyone else in the clan. Like, I'm not even kidding. We don't have a clan symbol, just zodiacs. Born in the year of the boar? Well I hope that you like how they look, because a shitty pig design will literally be embroidered onto everything you own!

I was a snake, Haruto a dog, Tou-san was a tiger, and Kaa-san was a hare. I think one of the mystery siblings was a horse, but that's purely based on the assumption that someone owned the small horse toy I was given as a child before me.

It probably had something to do with the clan obsession with zodiacs that had me staring down a literal viper. My four year old body was very disjointed from my twenty-something brain as I tried to understand what the fuck was going on.

My "mother" wants me to put my hand in the mouth of a viper. Yeah, I'm gonna have to pass on that. Now to figure out how to voice that in a way that won't end with me doing chores for the next three months...

I took a step back in apprehension, "Kaa-san, I'm not going to-"

"Hiroko!" Kaa-san shouted, making both Haruto and me jump. Haruto had been quietly coming up behind me as I was having my moment, so I really didn't notice him until his arm hit me as he jumped.

I let out a squeal of surprise as his hand brushed against my bare arm, and it felt like someone was injecting hot syrup into my veins. It was straddling at first, then kind of pleasant, but then the pain hit.

Where the syrup had been inside of me, now was becoming sharper and larger, to the point that it felt like every nerve in my arm was being stabbed and set on fire. I choked back a sob as the pain suddenly stopped, and rubbed my arm carefully.

There was no physical injury, but my hand was still tingling a bit. Kaa-san looked… well she actually looked like she was purposefully trying not to react. I looked back at Haruto, who was gaping at me with wide eyes as he clutched his hand to his chest.

"Haru-nii?" I asked tentatively, mind racing to figure out what had happened.

Before he could answer, Kaa-san spoke. "Hiroko, I know that you probably have questions, but this is something that must happen." She held out the viper to me, hand pressed firmly against it's head so that it's fangs were flexed out as it hissed in outrage.

"Kaa-san, please," I lifted up my hands in a pacifying gesture, "you're scaring me. Why can't you just tell me-!"

She must have known that I wasn't going to willingly consent to being bitten, so as I was talking (and so foolishly _held out my hands_ to her) she used a burst of speed to grab my left wrist and shoved my hand face up into the mouth of the snake.

I screamed as the same sensation that had happened earlier when Haruto bumped me happened, except this time it didn't stop. I could feel the pain flowing from the snake into me like a stream of white-hot knives.

I… think I passed out after that. At least briefly. Mostly because the next thing I was really aware of, I was facedown on the ground, the snake was gone, and I briefly glanced to see that Kaa-san was holding Haruto back from trying to help me up. I had to close my eyes and look away from Kaa-san, feeling betrayal and hurt welling up inside of me. _Okay,_ I thought, _just take inventory. Am I alright?_

Well, my whole body ached tremendously, and I was aware of something off inside of me. Around where my stomach was, something felt… heavier…? It felt like there was more of something than there had ever been before. It wasn't a significant difference, but it was noticeable.

I grunted as I pushed myself up into a sitting position, rubbing the arm that had been bitten. I looked at my hand to inspect the damages, and almost screamed. Everything was wrongwrongwrongwrong _wrongwrong!_ _I- I can't explain- what is this?! Just breathe and-! The air smells so bad! I can taste it, and it's disgusting!_ I slapped a hand over my mouth and held my breath, when my lungs began burning I tentatively breathed in through my nose. It was almost normal.

Everything was the same, but not? Underlying everything was a kind of glow, more pronounced in some places, but not in others and I just- NO! Calm down! Kaa-san said she would explain. Listen. Figure it out. Act upon the given info. Calm. Down.

I took a breath, and cautiously opened my eyes. Kaa-san and Haruto were watching me with varying levels of worry. Haru-nii was openly crying out for me, literally having to be held back from coming into the little area where I was. Kaa-san's brows were slightly creased, but other than that there was no indication of any emotion on her face. The infamous shinobi emotionless mask was much more frustrating to be on the receiving end of than giving it out.

Kaa-san let him go, and he immediately raced over to me, and almost scooped me up into a hug before stopping himself. He glanced at me and awkwardly and gently placed his hand on my head. "Hi-chan?" He took in my tired frame and got down to my level.

I wordlessly watched him struggle with not being able to physically comfort me. I- I didn't really know what to do. It had hurt when he had touched me, and as much as I loved him, I really didn't want to relive whatever the hell just happened so soon.

He took his training shirt off and held it out to me. I hesitantly took it from his hand, careful not to touch him. I quickly pulled the shirt over me and pulled my arms and legs into the too-big article of clothing. Once I was almost completely in it, Haruto pulled me carefully into his lap as I began to cry. He rubbed gentle circles on my back, murmuring soothing words.

It was… almost degrading in a scene. I was a grown woman trapped in a four year old's body being comforted by an eleven year old. I told myself that I didn't need to be held by this _boy_ , but my younger mind cried out in childish fear.

I was different. I didn't know what changed, but everything was off. It was like I had just been shoved into another universe, and I honestly that was not something that I was mentally ready to even consider at this point, especially seeing as how I had just been born into this one only four-ish years ago.

Kaa-san slowly came forwards and sat on the grass in front of both of us. She just watched me cry for what felt like forever. I didn't look at her, but every time I breathed I tasted the faint sweetness in the air that was distinctly coming from her direction.

After I had calmed down enough that I was only hiccuping every now and then, she spoke.

"Hi-chan, look at me."

I wanted to disobey her, but I knew that it would have just made things so much worse for both of us emotionally, so I hesitantly opened my eyes and looked at her. I squinted at the odd orange and red glow that was coming from her and Haruto, and the stark contrast that it made with the significantly dulled landscape around us (almost as if the greens and browns of the forest had been diluted with bleach).

"You have just experienced our Kekkei Genkai. We call it the _Goutou_ bloodlimit." Her voice was without nuance, as if she were speaking simply to hear herself speak. The emotionless mask that was Kaa-san was intent on giving me all of the information she had to give before involving something as pesky as emotion into the mix, apparently.

"As a member of the Abe clan, you have inherited a very powerful and dangerous ability through this _Goutou_ bloodlimit. Generations of Abe before you have used it to protect their loved ones and their clan, and it has been the reason for many battles in this part of the Fire country.

"Our chakra is unique in the fact that it is actually without a base nature, meaning that it is much easier for us to learn and master ninjutsu, but it also means that there is what would to those outside of the clan be a deadly imbalance of chakra from within ourselves and the world around us.

"Other ninja use their chakra to do things like conceal themselves by making the chakra within themselves dampen until it is underneath the natural flow of chakra in the world, or so that it harmonizes with it and is indistinguishable from it. Most shinobi cannot sense the natural energy of the world, so they think little of what they are actually doing when using their own chakra in regards to it.

"As an Abe, we must always be aware of the imbalance. Our own chakra is concentrated on the skin, but does not circulate very well within our bodies, which makes a vacuum within ourselves that outside chakra will quickly flood into if allowed, as you have now experienced in two different ways," she motioned to Haruto, who still held me in his arms.

"When your brother's skin brushed against yours, his chakra inadvertently penetrated your system for the brief moment of contact and tried to go into you forcefully, which is why you felt such pain. With the viper, it physically punctured your skin with its own body, which led to the chakra in the serpent draining into you at a much faster rate, to the point that the creature was bled dry of chakra in a matter of seconds and your own chakra and physical body took on some of its characteristics."

She paused for a moment to let that all seep in. It… Kinda made sense I suppose. The odd taste that I got could be some kind of enhanced smell, and the strange augmented vision that I was experiencing was likely some kind of heat sensing. This was what the small part of my brain that was still mostly functional was thinking, while the majority of the rest of it was trying to comprehend the fact that I had just been forced to kill a snake, and was more or less the ninja equivalent to Rogue from the X-Men.

Shakily, I took a breath. "W-why a viper?"

Kaa-san raised an unimpressed eyebrow at me. "I would have thought it was obvious Hiroko. We are distinguished by our zodiacs. All Abe must go through this ritual with their respective animals."

I flinched at her tone, then froze. My eyes widened in horror as I looked to my older brother, who was born in the year of the Dog. He smiled sadly at me and carefully rolled up his pants so as not to touch my skin. When the fabric was rolled up to his knees, he turned his calf so I could see the white scars in the shape of a dog bite. I gasped and looked away from the scar to my hand where the viper had bitten me. Two small holes in my hand were dripping blood, but it seemed to be slowing even as I looked at it.

Kaa-san scared the everloving hell out of me as she grabbed my hand to inspect the wound, seemingly just noticing it as well. Without any gloves, might I mention.

"No, don't-!" I shouted only to wince at the flick she gave to my forehead.

"Don't move while I clean this," she demanded and set out to wrap my hand. I looked between her face and her hands on my own in confusion a few times before I was bale to find my voice again.

"How are you able to touch me?" I asked in a small voice.

She snorted, and continued wrapping my hand as she responded. "Well for one, Hi-chan, I am much older than you and have worked very hard to master our bloodlimit. It takes about a decade of specialized training under the guidance of the clan elders to be able to touch others who do not have control over this ability. For another, any Abe woman who wants to bear children must go through this training or risk absorbing the chakra of the infant in childbirth or shortly thereafter when feeding it."

"Oh," was my brilliant response.

Kaa-san stood up gracefully and picked me up out of Haruto's lap. "Come," she said to Haruto as she began walking into the forest, but in a different direction than when we came into the clearing. I looked to her questioningly. She looked down at me and could apparently read my mind when she said, "We are going to speak to elder Dako about what your training will look like for the next few years. If all goes well you can work missions with your brother by the time you are seven."

I balked at her words, the reality of the child-soldier system of the Naruto universe suddenly taking on a lot more gravity than it had in the past. I tried to hold down the bile that threatened to creep up my throat. I tried to look anywhere but at Kaa-san and Haruto-nii, the knowledge that both were seasoned killers suddenly very real to me.

If my eyes stopped for a split second at the sight of a discarded snake corpse at the edge of the clearing in my search for visual comfort, I never said anything to my family about it.


End file.
